Borderlands Season Two Review

Season 2 of Borderlands 3’s DLC is here and is coming out with a huge bang! With the release of the Designer’s Cut, Borderlands 3 brings back old favourites Axton and Salvador. We get to see what these two have been up two since the events of Borderlands 2, along with a new skill tree for each of the Vault hunters and some new character models.

Jumping off the back of season one’s DLC, the Psycho Krieg and the Fantastic Fustercluck, with its rich story content and emotional send-off for two much-loved characters, we start Season 2’s Designer’s Cut DLC with a return of Axton and Salvador, starting their game show of sorts – with a battle royal twist. Arms Race is a new direction for a Borderlands DLC with players being dropped into an old Dahl base known as the Stormblind Complex.

Arms race is part game show, part Battle Royale and part rogue-like. Players start the map with no gear, no action skills or guardian rank. The Battle Royale part comes in the form of the Murdercane, a snowstorm hurricane that will cause damage the longer you stay in it. The rogue-like part comes in the one life nature of this game mode. Another feature in this mode is something lifted straight out of The Division’s Dark Zone, with players able to extract any legendary gear they might get during the play through. As with all Borderlands DLC’s, Gearbox have introduced a bunch of new legendaries that are exclusive to the area of them game (20 in total). Players will make their way through the map having to choose to run the risk of going for the heavily guarded rare loot crates spread out on the outskirts of the map or to work their way into the centre to face the main boss of the Snowblind Complex.

With the emphasis mostly on exploring this new map to get better gear, I found that I did enjoy this concept, and the fact that you can only choose to extract a few weapons each time you jump into Arms Race makes it more worthwhile for replay-ability. However, you can use the extractors before you reach the ending boss and sacrifice some of the more valuable gear you find, but doing so may jeopardise your chances during the battle, and the more you explore and fight, the more of a chance you get for legendary weapons and gear.

Another aspect to the Designer’s Cut DLC is the addition of new skill trees for each of the Vault Hunters, such as Amara’s Enlightened Force, You also have Zane’s The Professional, giving him the MNTIS shoulder cannon, which when activated can fire up to three charges, giving you an edge during battle. Somewhat along the lines of the shoulder cannon from the Predator movies. FL4K’s ‘Trapper’ skill tree has a new Loader Bot pet that is a great addition along with a fun gravity snare. Mixing those two together brings a whole new way for a little crowd control and is very useful when taking on several enemies. As for my go to Vault Hunter, Moze’s Bear Mother skill tree grants her the use of an Iron Cub, a mini version of your beloved mech that follows you around the battlefield!

Conclusion

In conclusion, the starting of Season 2’s DLC may lack in the way of story content, but it makes up in setting the foundation for new and old players to jump back into the Borderlands universe. From the new skill trees to the Arms Race DLC, players can expect this to just be the beginning of something bigger in the long run.

This game was tested and reviewed on Xbox. All of the opinions and insights here are subject to that version.